


Like A Bird to You Now

by whateverrrrwhatever



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Arranged Marriage, BAMF Stiles, Courtship, Historical Inaccuracy, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Rating May Change, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Vikings, Warrior Derek Hale, if you're into that, rating will absolutely change, there are a lot of firelit conversations
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-01-29 21:33:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21417013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whateverrrrwhatever/pseuds/whateverrrrwhatever
Summary: Just before the harvest, the longships glide up to Beacon’s shores, bringing with them the Alpha of the Hale pack and her son, in search of a marriage.
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 80
Kudos: 338
Collections: Full Moon Ficlet Prompt #354: Ship





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by: Full Moon Ficlet Prompt #354 - Ship, [this](https://sourwolfandlionheart.tumblr.com/post/180434245753/dexterous-sinistrous-dexterous-sinistrous-i), for which I have no words, and an endless chat with [dottie_wan_kenobi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dottie_wan_kenobi) that began in September with [this](https://dottie-wan-kenobi.tumblr.com/post/187962847375/sterek-vikings-au) moodboard.
> 
> Please note: historical accuracy is irrelevant here. If that's going to weigh on you, turn back now. This WIP is planned out, but has not been completed. I'll be updating the tags and rating as I go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to [dottie_wan_kenobi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dottie_wan_kenobi), [thisnewjoe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisnewjoe), and [talymaly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/talymaly) for taking a quick look at this to make sure it made sense.
> 
> This is the first installment of a WIP, but stands on its own. I'll be updating the tags and rating as I go.

Just before the harvest, the longships glide up to Beacon’s shores, bringing with them the Alpha of the Hale pack and her son, in search of a marriage.

Stiles is tending sheep when the Hales pass at a distance on their way to the village. He’s fletching arrows, playing small sleight-of-hand games with the shafts to pass the time. He’d seen Talia and the Wolf leading the procession of Hales along the road, flanked by their betas, followed by carts of tithes and dowry. Twirling the shaft of the arrow between his fingers, he watches the convoy from across the field. 

Stiles flips the arrow from end to end in an arc high above his head and catches it neatly behind his back, hand wrapped around the very center of the shaft. He brings it up in front of him and rests the arrow on one finger, checking its balance, and tucks it back in the quiver, satisfied. When he turns back to the flock, the Wolf has stepped off the road, away from his pack. Even from this far away, Stiles can tell the Wolf is looking at him — staring, unflinching. Stiles stares back, unmoving, until the Wolf starts, as if someone has called his name, and turns, jogging back to the road to rejoin his mother.

He doesn’t know what it means, at the time.

That night, after he herds the sheep back home at sunset, chasing a last errant ewe into the pen, he goes in search of his father.

“Lydia,” he greets the miller's daughter just outside the village. “Have you seen him?”

She raises her eyebrows, twisting her lips in an unreadable smile. “In the longhouse,” she says. “With the Hales.”

He isn’t surprised — his father is respected in the village and well skilled at negotiation. It isn’t unusual for him to be called to mediate and witness deliberations and treaties.

Stiles is surprised on his way back to their small shared home by a man stepping from between the longhouse and the mill. He recognizes the Wolf immediately. He’s taller than Stiles, broad-shouldered, clad in the imposing wool overcoat of a warrior. His hair is braided in the Northern style, tucked behind his ears and loose at the crown, and his eyes are bright and clear in the last of the daylight. The man lives up to his reputation, Stiles thinks: handsome, aloof, intimidating.

“You shouldn’t wander around alone in the dark,” The Wolf says.

“A pleasure to meet you,” Stiles says pointedly. “And I know the path well. There’s no one in this village that would do harm to me.”

“You can’t be sure of that,” he replies. Maybe he should be afraid; these words would be threatening from any another person. But for all his reputation on the battlefield, the Wolf sounds earnest more than anything. Stiles decides to take pity on him.

“Yet, I am,” Stiles says.

The Wolf takes a step closer, frowning. “Don’t be stupid. There’s an entire contingent from a foreign settlement here, and who knows what enemies you’ve made besides. You must be more careful.”

“Thank you for your concern. I am perfectly able to take care of myself.” Stiles’s patience has worn thin.

“Listen—” the Wolf starts, reaching for Stiles’s arm, but he gets no further before his stubbled jaw is scraping against the mud wall of the longhouse, his arm twisted up behind him. The Wolf is as strong as they say, Stiles thinks, and as brave — a lesser man would be crying out for mercy. Stiles pulls, hard, and is rewarded with a disappointingly quiet grunt of pain.

“I’m very sorry. I’m afraid I interrupted you. Was there something you were trying to say?” Stiles releases the Wolf and swiftly steps back, but he’s in no danger. The Wolf spins around to face him, rubbing his injured shoulder, but doesn’t move to attack.

“My apologies,” the Wolf says roughly. “I was mistaken.”

“So you were,” Stiles agrees. “Good night, Wolf. Do take care not to run into trouble on your way to bed.”

“Good night.”

Stiles nods and takes his leave, turning back down the path, cloak trailing behind him. He can feel the Wolf’s eyes on him as he goes, but he blames the warmth in his cheeks on the cold wind.

++

He’s in the fields again the next morning, herding sheep and sharpening small wooden stakes to repair the roof, when Lydia comes to bring his lunch.

“Lyds,” he greets her. His feet are propped on a fallen log, his back against a tree. The sky is bright blue, the few clouds are barely-there streaky wisps blown out by the wind. It’s good sailing weather.

“Stiles,” she sighs. “I’m here to relieve you. You’re wanted back in the village for the afternoon.”

“What?” He sits up, wood shavings scattering. “Is my dad okay?”

“He’s fine. They want you for the negotiations.” Lydia inspects her nails. “The ‘now’ was implied.”

“What? Why?” Stiles asks, bewildered, but Lydia just rolls her eyes.

“If I knew, I would have told you.”

“Fine,” he huffs. “I’m going.” Stiles gets his feet under him and leaps up, brushing splinters from the front of his shirt. “Watch out for Dottie. She’s been trying to wander into the ravine all day.”

“Got it,” Lydia says. “Now go. They’re waiting for you.”

“Waiting for me? What—”

“Go,” she pushes him in the direction of the village and he stumbles forward in a flail of limbs, snagging an arm through the braided strap of his satchel on the way.

“I’m going, I’m going.” He sighs and starts back toward the village and the longhouse. At the edge of the field, he pauses, a sudden jolt of dread shaking a thought loose: he shouldn’t have insulted the Wolf last night. No, he thinks. Not possible. The Wolf would never tell anyone he’d been bested by Stiles. Still, the thought that he may have made a grave error builds in the back of his mind.

It’s a long, noisy walk back: the wind kicks up, whipping over the fields and sending long late summer grass crashing against itself, rippling in golden waves across the low hill. Walking into the wind slows him down, makes the journey feel endless, and it gives him far too much time to think.

++

When he arrives, the hall is smokey and dark. Lunch has just ended and the negotiators are settling back into their seats around a large table, Beaconers on one side, Hales on the other. Stiles’s stomach rumbles and he realizes that he hasn’t eaten.

“Stiles,” his father calls him over to the table. Despite years of study, Stiles finds his expression impossible to read. That should be alarming in its own right, but it’s overwhelmed by the odd tension in the room. Everyone seems nervous, shifty, except — Stiles catches sight of the Wolf, brow set in an angry frown, and he isn’t remotely hungry anymore.

“It was a misunderstanding,” he says quickly, raising his hands in supplication. “Dad, I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“Stiles,” his father interrupts. “I don’t know what you’re talking about and I’m not sure I want to. You’ve been called here at the request of the Hale party.”

“I know, and I said I’m sorry — just let me explain,” Stiles pleads. “I didn’t mean to—”

“Stiles!” His dad says, and Stiles, for once in his life, shuts up. He’s never yelled like that before. He’s worried, Stiles realizes. He’s confused. “Just listen.”

“Stiles,” says a voice from the other side of the table, and Stiles realizes that he’s being addressed by none other than Talia Hale. This is way more serious than he’d thought. “Thank you for joining us. Can we offer you some ale?”

“I’m fine, but thanks,” Stiles says. He knows he shouldn’t refuse her hospitality but he has no clue what’s going on and doesn’t think ale on an empty stomach will help the situation.

“Very well,” Talia allows. She smiles at him, polite and firm. The Hales on either side of her — a long-haired, light-eyed woman who must be her daughter, a pale, blonde woman, and a tall dark-skinned man — are all staring at him with varying levels of curiosity and contempt. Only the Wolf won’t meet his eyes. “Please sit.”

Stiles looks to his father, who nods, and he slowly sinks down on the bench beside him. “Alpha Hale, you sent for me. How can I be of service?”

“As you know, I am here to secure a marriage contract,” she says patiently. “It is time for my son, Derek, to be wed.” She looks down the table to the Wolf, whose gaze is still fixed on the table before him. Talia looks back at Stiles and exhales what could almost be a sigh. “You are here, Stiles, because it is you he seeks for his bride.”

For a long moment, hiss and pop of the fire is the only sound in the longhouse. Then Stiles barks out a long, sharp laugh. “I’m sorry, what?”

“We are requesting to negotiate for your hand,” Talia says firmly, and that’s definitely a sigh he hears. “For your bride-price and dowry. And Derek has requested your father’s permission to court you.”

“Are you serious? Dad?” He turns to look at his father, who nods solemnly. Stiles looks back to the Wolf — to Derek — who’s frowning at the table now, brow set in an angry glare. The tips of his ears are flushed, thought it’s hard to tell if it’s from the warmth of the longhouse, or from something else. Anger, Stiles thinks, eyeing Derek’s hands where they grip the edge of the table, his fingers pale.

Stiles finds himself at a loss. He can’t pick out a single thought from the tangle knotted up inside him. Everything in the room seems like a strange shadow of itself, like he’s dreaming, like this moment is a memory of something that happened a long time ago, and to someone else.

For possibly the first time in his life, Stiles is speechless.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again and forever to [dottie_wan_kenobi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dottie_wan_kenobi) for being an amazing beta.

He isn’t silent for long. Stiles’s thoughts reorganize and he quickly realizes he’s mostly furious at everyone. After a disastrous twenty minutes, in which he accuses his father, the Hales, and every elder in the village of flagrant perfidy and multitude of crimes against god and man, his father firmly escorts him from the longhouse by the scruff of the neck. He doesn’t let up until they’re almost halfway back to their own home.

“What the hell, Stiles?” His dad’s face is flushed. “What was that back in there?”

“What the hell, dad? What do you mean? I’m out in the field, minding my own business, making sure the stupid sheep don’t wander off and kill themselves,” he gesticulates wildly to illustrate the pitiful somersaults Dottie had executed while trying to scale a boulder that very morning, “and the next, I’m in there--” he jabs his finger toward the longhouse, “and you’re trying to sell me off to the highest bidder. Finally tired of me, old man?”

“Stiles, I just had to drag you kicking and screaming—”

“That’s an exaggeration.”

“Barely,” his dad sighs, running a hand through his hair. It’s gotten a lot grayer since last autumn. “I know you’re surprised. We haven’t talked about this as much as we should have. I’m not going to be around forever—”

“Dad, don’t—”

“Hush, Stiles. I’m not going to be around forever. That’s a fact. You’re at an age where we need to be thinking about who you’ll spend your life with and who’s going to take care of you.”

“I can take care of myself,” Stiles insists, stopping just outside their small fenced yard. “I don’t need anyone else to do it for me.”

“Yes, you do. I know you can protect yourself,” John continues through the gate, talking over Stiles when he moves to protest. “But there are a lot of ways people need to be taken care of, and protection is only one of them. I never know how to talk about this stuff with you. Your mom was so good at it, and I.... What I’m trying to say is that you don’t have to go through life on your own.”

“I’m not on my own. I have you.”

“Aw, hell, son. You’ll always have me. But it’s time to think about finding someone else who can be your family, too. And you could do a lot worse than the Hales,” his dad shrugs. “They’re honest, good, brave people. Doesn’t hurt that they’re rich on top of it. And they asked specifically for you. I don’t know what you did to catch that young man’s eye, but it seems like you did a real number on him.”

“I don’t care,” Stiles says. “I don’t care about any of it. I don’t care who they are and I don’t care if they have all the gold in the whole damn world. I don’t want to leave you.”

“That’s the thing, son,” Stiles’s dad fixes him with a serious look. “You don’t have to.”

“What?” Stiles asks, baffled. “What do you mean?”

“You’ll have to ask Alpha Hale. She can explain what she’s thinking much better than I can. But you don’t have to leave here — if you do marry, Derek would come live here, in the village.”

“That’s…” It’s interesting, unheard of. Stiles stashes the knowledge away; he’ll find out the story behind it later. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to marry him. And I still don’t understand what he’s after. What do we have that could possibly interest Derek Hale?”

“Well Stiles,” His dad says, taking a deep breath. “It seems pretty clear that he’s interested in you.”

“But why me?” Stiles shakes his head, running a hand through his hair.

“What do you mean, why you?” His dad turns to him, frowning.

Stiles knows he has earned a reputation of his own. The freckled boy from the river village is clever, they say. Slight but much stronger than his form suggests. He can spin a story to trick the devil himself and talk the pearl from a mussel, and sometimes his hands move quicker than the eye can see -- sometimes too quickly, and in ways that can’t be explained by cleverness alone. He can throw a spear straight into the sky and it will fly farther and truer than an arrow if he closes his eyes and concentrates. But no one knows that about him, no one but Lydia and his dad, and certainly not the Hales.

But what they say about him is nothing compared to what they say about the Hales. They’re a warrior pack, fearsome and fearless. In the heat of battle, and in the brightest night of the full moon, they don pelts and run like wolves: all of them, a pack, terrible and fierce. The Hales are tall and beautiful, slow to smile, solemn. They have a reputation for being wary of outsiders and loyal to the grave. That, at least, he and Derek have in common.

“Why does he want me? If they’re so rich and strong and important, why is he asking for me?” Stiles says. He sits on the creaky bench just outside their front door and looks up at the sky. It’s twilight, the last glow of sunset clinging for a long moment just before it slips below the horizon.

“Stiles, son… I guess the kid knows a good thing when he sees it,” his dad says gruffly, sitting down beside him. “You know I — you and your mother are the best things that ever happened to me. And if you’ll have him, you’ll be the best thing that’s ever happened to Hale.”

“I—” Stiles clears his throat, at a loss for the second time that day. “Thanks, dad.”

His dad nods. Neither one of them know what to say after that, and they lapse into a heavy, preoccupied silence, looking out into the dark evening sky, bats darting overhead.

++

Stiles rises late the next morning, well after dawn. Scott is tending the flock for him today. He’s staying in the village with his father to make sense of the day before.

He’s catching his breath in the middle of chopping wood, swiping his forehead with a grubby sleeve when a figure catches his eye: Alpha Hale, at the edge of the courtyard, patiently watching. He sighs and tosses the last few cut pieces on the woodpile. 

“Alpha Hale,” Stiles calls. “Good morning.” He watches her come toward him, trying to school his thoughts. He’s surprised she came to see him.

“Stiles,” she says. “I came to apologize. I shouldn’t have surprised you like that yesterday. It wasn’t the appropriate way to begin this conversation, and I’m afraid we may have made the wrong impression.”

Stiles inclines his head in agreement, grimacing slightly. “Yeah, all things considered, it probably wasn’t the best introduction. And in retrospect, my reaction could have been a little less… energetic. I may have said a few things I didn’t mean.”

“As have we all. And now we’re here, you and I.” Alpha Hale gives him a small smile.

“We are,” he agrees, sighing. “Can I make you something to drink?”

“Please.”

Alpha Hale follows him back into the single room he and his father share. Holding the door open, he watches her step over the threshold, and wonders what she thinks of the two pallets, the open fire, the single small rough-hewn table where they share meals. She takes a seat there and he busies himself preparing one of Melissa’s tisanes. The Stilinkskis have what they need and a little more, well-off compared to many in the village. But not like the Hales.

“So,” Stiles sets two steaming wooden cups on the table and clears his throat. He’s not sure what to say, and not much for small talk, so might as well get started. “My father says that Derek wants to leave his village.”

“The situation is a little… unusual. Derek would prefer to join his intended’s village after the wedding, and I respect his choice. Though it’s unconventional, he thought that you might find such an arrangement attractive.”

Stiles just stares at her, astounded. “He what?”

“Derek will be leaving the North,” Alpha Hale frowns slightly. “He has had some regrettable dealings with our neighbors to the East. It would be best for him to… leave that behind him. My son will always be welcome in the North, but he may find himself happier elsewhere.”

“Won’t that endanger the village? This is my home, and the home of my father, and all of my family and friends. I would never do anything to draw a threat here.”

“It would not. The matter is old and resolved. There will be no further trouble with the Argents, but he will rest easier away from them,” she says, reaching for her cup. “Anything else?”

“Well, yes,” Stile says. “The things they say about the Wolf — about Derek — don’t you need him? Your pack is strong, but he’s… Alpha Hale, if half the things they say about him are true, why are you letting him go?”

“Stiles,” Alpha Hale says, tilting her head consideringly. “Call me Talia.” She sips her tisane for a long moment, watching the fire. “Derek is a fierce fighter and an important part of our pack. He is a middle child, second-born, with no aspirations to higher leadership, despite what he may have said and done in his younger years. Above all, he is my son. But most importantly, he is now an adult, and capable of making his own decisions. If this is what will bring him happiness, how can I stand in his way?”

“You sound like my dad,” Stiles says, smiling. “Derek’s lucky.”

She laughs loudly, surprised into mirth. “Thank you, but I’m not sure he’d say the same just now.”

++

The Hales agree to focus solely on trade negotiations for the time being, though the significance of a potential marriage alliance means no one takes the conversation too seriously. The shape of the conversation depends entirely on whether or not Derek successfully courts, well, anyone.

Stiles tries not to think about it too much, but sitting in the field with the flock all day offers few distractions. The sheep are behaving, mostly, and the small crafts that usually while away the hours don’t hold Stiles’s attention for long when challenged by a marriage prospect — especially when that prospect is Derek Hale, the Wolf: fearsome warrior, stoic and handsome, kind of an asshole.

He barely knows Derek — only from afar, at festivals and feasts years past — but then again, there’s no certainty that he would know any suitor before courtship, or even marriage. When he was younger, he’d thought he’d marry someone in the village. For a while, he was dead-set on Lydia. Now, well, he has no clue how, but it looks like his match might end up a scowling Northern stranger.

++

He’s still thinking about it after lunch, laid out on a flat rock with his feet planted in the dirt, staring up at the clouds and humming to himself. The sheep are napping, settled into the long grass and clover. The air is calm, and he can hear bees buzzing between the last of the late blooming flowers.

Stiles breathes in the sun-warm granite and yawns, rucking his tunic up to scratch idly at his belly, until he hears the crunch of a footstep in the grass beside him.

“Derek,” Stiles says, bolting upright and tugging his tunic back into place. He runs a hand through his hair — futile, and he knows it — and tries to look like he wasn’t half-asleep on a rock, sweating in the sun.

“Stiles,” Derek’s just as intense as the last time Stiles saw him — when he asked permission to court you, Stiles’s traitorous brain shouts, and he can feel himself flush bright red — and looming over his spot on the rock.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” Stiles says. “Not that -- if you wanted to, well, I mean, I’m not sure where else…. I mean. Why don’t you sit down,” he finishes feebly.

Derek does, and looks determinedly out at the field. “You talk a lot,” he finally says.

Stiles stares at him, jaw dropped, for a long, astonished moment. “You don’t,” he replies, bristling. “Just an observation.” 

Derek frowns and looks down at the ground. The tips of his ears are flushed bright pink. It makes Stiles feel a little relieved; he might not be the only one who has no idea what he’s doing.

“I brought something for you,” Derek says abruptly. “A gift.” He unties a small leather pouch hanging from his belt, fumbling a little. “Here.”

Stiles holds out his open palm, and Derek places a carefully rolled length of trim: fine threads of blue and palest green interwoven with gold in an intricate pattern: interlocking triskelions, the Hale sigil, running down the center. It’s beautiful, made by someone far more skilled than any of the artisans in Stiles’s village. He runs a finger over the design, awed. Stiles knows a courting gift when he sees it, the invitation to mark himself as prized by one of the Hales.

“It’s beautiful, really,” he says. “Thank you. Did one of your sisters make it?” He doubts it — the Hale women are known to be warriors, not weavers. A villager skilled in crafts made this, or one of the warriors’ wives, waiting for them to come home from battle.

“No,” Derek says bluntly. “I made it.”

“Oh.” Stiles rubs the weaving between his fingers. As the silence drags on, Derek starts looking angry again, and Stiles scrambles for something to say. “I mean, I wouldn’t have thought that you — not that you couldn’t, or. You seem like someone who spends more time cleaning weapons than warping a loom,” he finishes lamely.

“My father helped,” Derek admits. He looks out at the flock, ignoring Stiles’s eyes on him. ”He’s good with patterns.”

“Still, it takes skill to weave something as fine as this.” He wraps the length around his fingers. “Melissa, Scott’s mother, used to weave a lot. Small things like this, with the warp threaded through cards. She used to take it out with her to the field, and we’d play while she wove. That was before she became the healer,” Stiles adds. 

He doesn’t know why he’s still talking, why he’s bothering to explain all of this to Derek, but Derek’s leaning toward Stiles, watching him, listening. So he keeps going, telling stories about the village and his neighbors — nothing too revealing or specifically personal, nothing but the mundane and oddly intimate scenes of his daily life in the village.

Derek doesn’t say much but he listens and nods, and the corner of his mouth quirks up at one point, and Stiles would call that a victory, if he was looking for one.

After what must have been over an hour, but felt like no time at all, Derek stands to take his leave. “Thank you,” he says quietly, looking down at Stiles, unblinking. “I enjoyed this. More than I thought I would.”

“Hey, buddy, in case you forgot, _you_ were the one who came all the way out here to talk to _me_, and as a matter of fact—” He trails off. Derek’s smirking at him, a sideways incredulous little grin, and it’s… disarmingly friendly. Stiles’s mouth is suddenly dry and he realizes he’s been staring for a moment too long.

“I can think of worse ways to pass the afternoon,” Stiles says, finally.

“As can I,” Derek agrees. “I have to head back. They’ll be looking for me.” Stiles knows he’s imagining it, but he almost sounds reluctant. “Goodbye, Stiles.”

“Goodbye, Derek Hale.” 

Derek nods, turning to head back through the grass. He only looks back once, where the path dips out of view, before disappearing on his way to the village and the ships landed on the beach beyond it.

Stiles winds the trim into a coil and tucks it away into the pouch of trinkets and notions hanging from his belt. Derek may be courting him, but they’re not promised to each other. Not yet, he thinks, but also: maybe never.

Later that night, when he can’t fall asleep, he thinks about Derek sitting by the fire, warp held taut in front of him, deftly running a shuttle back and forth, carefully turning the shed, and what he might have been thinking as he wove the triskelions, thread by thread.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to [dottie_wan_kenobi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dottie_wan_kenobi) for betaing. This would suck a whole lot without your invaluable feedback.

Trade negotiations with the Hales move slowly, punctuated by long adjournments to make time for hunts in the forest and wrestling and marksmanship competitions by the sea. Isaac and Scott and a few other young men from the village join the Hale betas, Cora, Erica, and Boyd, for games and sparring in the mornings, and the visitors help with village chores in the afternoons.

Stiles is granted a reprieve from tending the flock, and spends his days in the village. Some mornings, he follows the wending path to the ocean, climbing over the dunes to where the betas and Scott and Isaac and sometimes Jackson, drawn by the outsiders, play their battle games. He sits in the wind and watches them chase each other back and forth, playing at keepaway or defending their territory. Scott and Isaac fight well together, have gone to reinforce neighboring villages when called since they grew old enough, but the betas are a force of nature. They work together seamlessly, stepping into and dropping out of attack and defense patterns without uttering a single word.

When Derek joins them, they’re just as impressive, and twice as powerful. It’s almost graceful, the way he steps into the fray and they incorporate him into their maneuvers seamlessly, as easy and coordinated when they are four as when they are three. He’s cunning and quickly learns and exploits an opponent’s weaknesses. It’s only minutes into the game that he recognizes and leverages Scott’s weaker left side. He’s lighter on his feet than his form suggests, athletic and determined — he redoubles his effort where the others flag.

Boyd is strong, Cora quick and Erica ruthless, but Derek is unrelenting, blocking hits when the others miscalculate and leave themselves vulnerable, drawing Isaac’s attention so Cora can attack.

He’s also beautiful.

Usually, Stiles has gone back to the village by the time the others determine the day’s champion, or, as likely as not, declare a draw and a game well played. This day, Derek breaks off from the group early, shouting something to Boyd as he strips off his leather armor and dives into the ocean. He emerges shaking the water out of his hair and runs back across the beach, directly toward Stiles, who can’t look away.

Erica shouts at him as he goes, and Derek turns back to answer, and Stiles can see — there, on his muscled back, from shoulder blade to shoulder blade: a triskelion. Stiles’s breath catches in his lungs, and it takes him a moment to calm himself, to remember how to exhale again.

“What do you think?” Derek walks up to him, tunic and shirt bundled in one hand.

“You live up to your warrior’s reputation,” Stiles admits, clearing his throat. “You— you’re strong. And quick.”

“Thank you.” Derek gives him a tiny half smile and lingers for a long, awkward moment. There are drops of seawater on his skin, and Stiles knows the taste of them from years of summers spent in the same ocean. “I’ve got to get back to the village. I’ve stayed longer than I said I would.”

“Mmm,” Stiles agrees quickly, nodding. He’s distracted by everything: the patch of dry sand on Derek’s forearm, the tattoo he can’t see but now knows is there, the proximity and breadth of Derek’s bared skin. “You should. Before you’re missed. That is. You know. Don’t let me keep you.”

Derek nods, frowning. “Yes. I should. I’ll see you this evening?”

“Yes, this evening,” Stiles says, and turns back to the beach so he doesn’t stare at Derek as he walks away, wet trousers clinging, hair stuck to the curve of his shoulders and clavicle, and the triskelion branded high on his back.

++

After a morning spent on archery with the Hale pack and an afternoon repairing and sharpening the scythes from the harvest, Scott and Stiles slip out of the longhouse after dinner. They laugh and elbow each other out the door, slipping into their old childhood game of racing one another — in this case, to the Stilinski cottage. Stiles beats Scott out by a hair, for the same reason he always has: he’s much better at cheating than Scott has ever been.

“You have to learn to play dirty if you want to win against the Hales,” Stiles says once he’s caught his breath, leaning against the cottage’s packed sod wall. He heaves himself upright and turns to go in. “You and Isaac and Jackson are good, but they’re better. Muchbetter.”

Scott laughs, following him inside and elbowing him playfully. “Speaking of the Hales, you’ve spent a lot of time with Derek of late.”

Stiles shrugs. Derek’s joined him at dinner a few nights and approached him during chores. One memorable morning, he came by the courtyard and finished splitting the woodpile while Stiles stood by and watched him swing the axe, enthralled. “Something like that. He’s... intriguing.”

“Lydia says Derek gave you a courting gift?”

“Yes. Here,” Stiles ducks over to the leather pouch hanging from his bedpost. His fingers quickly find the fabric coil, now familiar with its gentle weight, its soft selvedge. He hands it off to Scott and turns to stoke the fire back to flame, sliding into his usual seat at the worn oak table once he’s satisfied.

“He made this?” Scott raises an eyebrow across the table, examining the trim with an expression of awe. “It’s….”

“I know,” Stiles says, dragging a hand down his face, remembering their afternoon together in the field, and the way Derek looks at Stiles now, so serious and hopeful. “I know. And... Monday, when he took his shirt off and dove into the ocean. Do you remember?”

“Kind of? I wasn’t paying much attention.”

“I was. And he has — well, he has a great deal,” Stiles gestures incomprehensibly. “But between his shoulders there’s a tattoo. It’s a triskelion. Same as these.” He points at the fabric, the interlocking whorls a reminder of Derek’s skin, an open invitation to mark himself as Derek’s, if not quite so permanently.

“Oh. Stiles, that seems pretty….”

“Serious? Intense? A declaration?” Stiles rests his forehead on the table. “Yes, I know, Scotty, trust me. I can’t escape knowing. I haven’t thought about anything else for the past three days.”

“Definitely serious,” Scott agrees, wrinkling his nose. “How are the negotiations going?”

Stiles shrugs. “Well? I was only called in the first time. My dad tells me things are going smoothly. No major obstacles, and the Hales are so far genuine and generous in their offer to treat with us. Other than that, I’m not sure.”

“That’s good news. But what about the other negotiations?”

“There are no other negotiations,” Stiles takes a deep breath and sits up, tapping a restless finger against the tabletop. “For now.”

“What does that mean? For now?”

“What that means, Scott, is that there are no other negotiations, for now.” He’s quiet for a moment, thinking, and a log pops on the fire, scattering a flurry of sparks on the hearth. “What it means is — that could change. I think it will change. I’m going to change it.”

“You’re really thinking of courting Derek?” “It looks that way,” Stiles says, an odd lump forming in his throat. He’s been considering it — winding Derek’s gift around his fingers, thinking about his somber mouth, frowning eyes, and the way they lighten when he looks at Stiles. The soft, clever hands and careful attention that made this. The Wolf, steadfast and so quick to protect his own. “Maybe. Yes.”

++

Derek finds him in the courtyard by the fire the same day he asks his father to approach Alpha Hale about reopening the negotiation for his troth. He’d agreed to it, but looked at Stiles with a careful stare all day, like he couldn’t quite figure out what was going on in his son’s head.

It’s late afternoon, the shadows long, wind blowing cold from the ocean over the village. Stiles is hunched in front of the fire on a lambskin, a spindle turning between his knees, wool roving wrapped around his wrist. Derek comes in fast, striding straight across the courtyard, coming to a sudden stop next to Stiles’s perch on a stone slab bench. He’s flushed from the cold, expression inscrutable, staring down at Stiles with wild and wary eyes.

“My mother told me,” he says abruptly, too loud, too breathless. “My mother told me that you — that your father approached her about the offer for your dowry and bride-price. Why?”

“I asked him to,” Stiles says dryly, drafting the roving between his fingers, watching it tighten and twist into yarn.

“But why?” Derek looks bewildered and hopeful both.

“I think I should be the one asking that question.” Stiles looks up, picking up the spindle and setting it aside, unwinding the roving from his wrist. “Why did you come here? Why did you ask for me? Why are you here now?”

Derek looks stunned, then chagrined, and Stiles gestures for him to sit on the low bench. It’s still a little cold in front of the fire, but he sits closer to Stiles than strictly necessary, maybe slightly closer that propriety would allow, now that they’re courting. But there’s no one there to tell them to move apart, and who is going to stop them?

“I don’t know — what do you mean, why am I here?”

“What I mean is this,” Stiles sighs heavily. “What is the Wolf, first son of Alpha Hale, doing looking for a marriage with a no-name shepherd in a no-name village in the South, where he intends to stay? What are you doing courting me?”

Derek stills, and a long silent moment stretches between them before he answers. “I saw you, this year. At midsummer.”

“You did?” Stiles blinks in surprise. He doesn’t remember seeing Derek, but to be fair, he doesn’t remember much of anyone; Scott had been newly enamoured with Kira and occupied with his suit, and a young man from the village to the South had captured Lydia’s rare attention. Stiles kept to himself that night. There had been long tables and fish cooked over the fire, honey mead, fruit and soft cheeses to make a feast. Playing with the children, and after, ducking into the forest to look up at the stars and carefully coax the flowers he’d picked that afternoon into a blooming, fragrant crown. Lydia found him, tripped across the clearing to where he sat against a tree, and folded herself next to him like a sleepy doe, laughing over a kiss stolen from Jackson Whittemore.

“I’d noticed you before, at festivals and feast days. But that night, I saw you. You were laughing with your friends, with McCall and the red-haired girl. I saw you later, too, by the fire.” Derek glances at Stiles, then looks to the fire in front of them now.

Stiles bites his lip, embarrassed. He’d been half-drunk on berry wine and playing small tricks with the embers, catching the sparks and send them whirling. He caught the youngest Hale cousin watching and called her over — he wasn’t sure of her name, there were so many of them running around that night, chasing and tumbling over each other like puppies — and spun the sparks into a cyclone, blossoming into constellations, tumbling over themselves in interlocking knots. Apparently she wasn’t the only one who had seen.

“I looked for you that night, after,” Derek says quietly. “But I couldn’t find you. I thought maybe you were… And then it was almost midnight, and you and the girl came out of the woods together. She took the crown of flowers from her hair and rested it on your head. And you smiled and threw your head back and laughed. You looked… and that’s when I— that’s how I remembered you.”

Derek turns toward him and Stiles suddenly realizes how close they’re sitting. It makes him nervous, but he finds he doesn’t mind it. He’s drawn to Derek, fascinated, wants to know him more. The feeling appears to be mutual.

“How did you do that?” Derek asks, hushed. “I’ve never met anyone who can do what you can do.”

“My mother taught me. She could… She had a gift. She could talk to the earth, ask it to do things for her — to open flowers in midwinter, freeze water at the height of summer. Small things. She called it asking for favors.” He reaches for the discarded wool, breaking off a length of roving and tucking the rest away. “She taught me how to ask, too. She was going to teach me everything she knew. I’ve had to figure out a lot on my own.”

Stiles looks up at Derek, who looks back, solemn. He’s rarely shared this with anyone. “Do you want to see?”

Derek nods and Stiles closes his eyes. He focuses on the wool in his palm, thinks of the sheep it came from, thinks of the meadow where it gamboled. He thinks of the spot in the river where he drew water to wash the wool, the metal that made the shears, the tree that gave the wood that his grandfather fashioned into cards many years ago. He thinks of his mother, helping him, explaining what to do, a secret between the two of them, the very first time he made it work. Thinks about how she smiled at him when he opened his eyes to find the apple on the table between them, full and ripe in the middle of May.

Derek inhales sharply at his side, quietly, like he’s trying not to, and he smiles. When he opens his eyes, the wool has tangled and matted, wrapped up in itself to form a small pale bird sitting in the center of Stiles’s palm. He closes his fingers around it and the corner of his mouth lifts in a small satisfied smile.

“I’ve wanted to ask you,” Stiles says. The sun has begun to set, the darkness of evening softening the shadows around them. “What is it you’re running from?”

“I made a mistake,” Derek says after a long pause. “I trusted the wrong person. I was foolish and young, and I paid for it.”

Stiles waits, but Derek doesn’t explain further. It doesn’t seem fair, to have shared such an important secret and get nothing in return. “That’s not much of an explanation.”

Derek shrugs, frowning, and says nothing. Stiles can hear the people of the village passing by on their way back from the fields, the forest, the beach. He sighs. “We should go. It’s almost dinner.”

“Right,” Derek says, but he makes no move to stand. He looks exhausted, wrapped up in his own misery, a far cry from the open wonder on his face before.

“Here,” Stiles says impulsively, opening his hand, the tiny bird sitting in the center of his open palm. Derek looks at it, startled, then up at Stiles. “It’s for you.”

“For me,” Derek repeats. “I— thank you. Thank you.” He turns to take the bird, fingers barely brushing Stiles’s skin, and Stiles is reminded of how close they are to each other: not quite touching, but he can feel Derek’s warmth beside him. He hasn’t moved away.

“Stiles,” Derek says, and Stiles looks up. Derek’s staring at him, half his face in shadow, half limned in firelight, lips parted, eyes golden. “May I…?”

Stiles nods, breath shallow in his chest. They aren’t supposed to be alone together now that they're courting, and this is exactly why. In this moment, there is nothing he wants more than to be completely, shamelessly alone with Derek Hale. Derek moves closer, tilts his head. Stiles turns his face up and closes his eyes, ready, eager.

He doesn’t know what he’s expecting, but it’s not this: Derek’s fingertips resting on his jaw and the lightest brush of lips on his cheek, and the spicy, salty smell of a man back from a day at work by the water. He opens his eyes and blinks as Derek draws back, disappointed and overwhelmed at once.

“Thank you,” Derek says again. He stands, slipping the bird in his pocket, and offers Stiles his hand. “Let’s go.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story becomes more ridiculous and self-indulgent every time I sit down to write. Any hints of historical accuracy and/or realism are now completely out the window. Melodrama and handwaving are in. I don't even know who these people are anymore. Here, have another chapter.
> 
> Thanks to [dottie_wan_kenobi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dottie_wan_kenobi) for looking this over and being very patient with me.

With betrothal negotiations finally underway, Stiles is permanently free of his duties in the fields. His dad is at the bargaining table most days, when he’s not mediating village disputes or tending to the horses and Stiles finds himself at loose ends — housekeeping and odd chores fill his days, but the rhythm of his life has been interrupted ever since the Hales arrived.

He sees Derek more often, who takes to leaving the morning’s sparring early and comes by as Stiles is sharpening his axe, or preparing the small vegetable patch outside his home for winter. One day, he drops by late in the afternoon, exhausted and smelling of tar after a day spent repairing the longships. He answers all of Stiles’s questions in grunts and nods until Stiles feeds him and over supper, Derek tells him about his childhood in the North: learning to row out on his own, about running aground on a sandbar until high tide freed him to paddle home just in time for supper, his family none the wiser. When their bowls are empty and Derek’s replies are few and brief once again, Stiles shoos him away to bathe and sleep.

On an unusually warm morning the Friday after their meal, Derek appears early. Stiles is just back from the stream, hanging the fresh washing on the line. It’s almost too cold for this — soon the washing will have to dry inside by the fire, slung over rafters and chairs. Stiles hangs the last shirt to dry in the sun and turns at the soft scuff of leather shoes on the path behind him.

“Derek,” he says, eyebrows raised. “You’re early.”

“I — yes,” Derek manages. “We were — that is. We were finished.” 

“Right,” Stiles says slowly, confused. Derek’s wearing a blue tunic that looks new, bordered with its own triskelion-patterned trim. He looks, too, as if he’s just bathed, hair slightly damp and freshly braided. “That makes sense. Did you — were you planning on staying? I still have chores, but if you wanted to…”

“I was. I wanted to ask you… But, I — you’re busy. I can come back.” Derek looks back toward the village, and won’t meet Stiles’s eyes. Derek hasn’t acted so strange around him for weeks. They’re comfortable around each other, now, their conversations teasing and warm.

“What? Is there something wrong? Is there—” Stiles looks down, frowning. His shirt is still soaked through, sheer and clinging to his skin. He hadn’t realized he was such a mess — it’s mortifying. Stiles crosses his arms across his chest and wills away the flush he knows is creeping up the back of his neck. “Aw, hell. I’m sorry, I— this is hardly respectable.”

“I’ll give you time, then. To finish your chores and —” Derek clears his throat. “And get changed.” Derek looks embarrassed for him, uncomfortable and flushed. He’s standing too still and casting short, uneasy glances at Stiles when he isn’t fixated on the ground between their feet.

“Yes. That would be best,” Stiles agrees, sighing. He frowns and runs a frustrated hand through his hair. Trust him to scare Derek off after they’ve finally agreed to formal marriage negotiations by swanning about in his front yard in a see-through shirt, sloppy and shameless.

“I’ll be back. This afternoon,” Derek nods and practically sprints back down the path to the water. 

++

Despite Stiles’s tactless display, Derek returns that afternoon in the new blue tunic, come to lead him out of the village and down to the edge of the estuary and the faering on the shore beside it.

They push off from shore and row together, oars cutting into the clear, choppy water. The current is strong, and their lighthearted conversation gives way to silence and the rhythm of their rowing, cutting quickly across the shallow water, up toward the mouth of the river. Derek deftly steers them into a rocky cove sheltered by a copse of lindens just beyond the watersmeet.

Pulling up the oars and letting the boat drift, Stiles closes his eyes and tilts his face toward the sun, high over the water. Breathing in the smell of the salty water, the warm rocks, the wooden boat, he opens his eyes to find Derek looking at him, lips just barely curved in a smile.

“You must like the water,” Derek says, breaking the silence. “You’re a better oarsman than I thought you’d be.”

“I will choose not to be offended by your lack of faith in my abilities,” Stiles says dryly.

“It’s not — Stiles, I know you aren’t out in the longships, is what I meant,” Derek says, exasperated.

“To be fair, I have been rescued from these very waters many times before,” Stiles admits. “After my mother… I told you she taught me how to do what I do, but she also told me stories. About what we could do, about the land, about elves and wights and trolls. After she died, I thought…” Stiles falls silent. “Now that I’m telling it, this story isn’t as entertaining as I thought it might be.”

“You can tell me anyway,” Derek says quietly, leaning to rest his elbows on his knees. “I want to know.”

Stiles takes a deep, shuddering breath. “I thought, after she died — we said goodbye in the old way. Dressed her in new clothes and wrapped up her comb and mirror. It was Spring, and we made her a crown of lily-of-the-valley and a bier of foxgloves and heather and sent her off on the water. I was the one that shot the arrow, the way she taught me, and it flew true.”

He can still remember it clearly: standing beside his father on the shore, Melissa and Scott just behind them: nocking the arrow, drawing the bow. Watching the flames lick the edges of the boat before finally catching, his mother’s body a beacon as the water carried her away.

“I was young,” Stiles says, dropping a hand over the side of the boat, letting his fingertips skim along the surface of the water. “And we were so close. It was difficult for me to accept. She felt… nearby. So many nights I dreamt she was still here, somewhere, if I could just find her.

“After, my dad and I argued all the time. It was too hard for both of us, but… I wanted to run to her. I was convinced. So I thought to look in the last place I had seen her. So I took one of the old boats, a little smaller than this one, and I rowed out on the water, but,” Stiles sighs, long and low. “I set out too late, just before sunset. The tide was going out, and I couldn’t — I was fighting against the current, and I was young, then, not as strong. I didn’t have the experience or skill. I got tired, and the current pulled me toward the ocean. I lost an oar. I was soaked through to the bone from trying to reach it, and getting colder. I tried one last time, leaned out as far as I could, and I capsized the boat.”

“Stiles, you —” Derek’s frowning, moving to reach out to him, but Stiles shakes his head.

“I tried to convince the tide to turn back, begged the wind and the current to carry me to shore, but they wouldn’t listen. Fortunately, Lydia realized what I’d done and told my dad. He came and got me out of the water. After that, I stopped thinking she was still here. It was foolish,” Stiles says. “I was old enough to know better.”

“It’s not foolish,” Derek insists, “to miss the people we love, to want them returned to us.”

“I almost died, Derek.” Stiles laughs hollowly. “It was foolish.” The memory is old, but time has only just dulled the feeling - cold, alone, the last hope he held that his mother might have somehow escaped the inevitable extinguished.

Derek says nothing, just reaches out to grasp Stiles’s wrist, gentle but firm. It’s… comforting, he’s surprised to realize. Stiles uncurls his fingers to offer Derek his palm, and he takes it, squeezing. Something tense in Stiles eases and falls away.

“To be truthful, it wasn’t the first time I tried something like that. It was the fairy stories she used to tell. When I was even younger, a few years before she died, I convinced Scott there were mermaids living up the river, and they would only come out if we went to find them without our parents.” Stiles glances at Derek with a wry smile.

“And he believed you?” Derek asks.

“He was just as persuadable then as he is now. We had a plan to row up the delta. We made it as far as the shore. Issac caught us trying to drag a boat into the water and ran and got my dad,” Stiles says. “It was probably for the best, but I was so angry at the time. I was stuck shoveling manure and collecting cow patties for weeks after.”

“A frequent occurrence, I would guess?” Derek teases lightly.

“I used to get up to all kinds of trouble when I was younger,” Stiles grins. “And I was very good at getting away with it.”

“And you don’t now?” Derek says dubiously, raising an eyebrow.

“On that topic,” Stiles clears his throat, letting go of Derek’s hand. “I wanted to say — I’m sorry for this morning. I hadn’t realized I was so—”

Derek cuts Stiles off, shaking his head. “You have nothing to apologize for. I shouldn’t have…. It was my fault, I came to you unexpectedly. I intruded on your privacy, and I… You thought you were alone. You had no reason to think I would be there.”

“Still,” Stiles insists. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. It was… untoward.”

“Is that what you think?” Derek looks at him sharply. “That you were being indecent? That you were making me uncomfortable?”

“Yes, Derek. Obviously. I was the one standing around in a soaked shirt in the middle of my yard this morning. I wasn’t exactly dressed for polite company,” Stiles says mulishly.

“No. No, it wasn’t you. You didn’t make me feel uncomfortable. It was me,” Derek says quietly. Stiles’s annoyance quickly gives way to confusion. “I was the one who — Stiles.”

In the silence that falls between them, water softly laps at the sides of the boat, and a pair of crows caw to each other in the distance. Stiles can hear his heart pounding in his ears, can hear the slight hitch in his own breath.

“Stiles,” Derek says again: softer, closer, darker. “I was the one who — I wanted —” He reaches out to grip Stiles’s shoulder with his broad hand, hooks his thumb under Stiles’s tunic and runs it over the shirt underneath, dragging against his collarbone. Stiles gasps.

And then he can’t help it — he doesn’t want to. Stiles leans forward, gaze meeting Derek’s. Derek’s eyes drop to Stiles’s mouth, and back. He barely has time to breathe in before their lips meet: a soft, gentle press, still, suspended, like they’re both holding their breath.

It goes on a moment too long, building into something else entirely. Derek groans quiet and low, slipping his arm around Stiles’s waist and pulling him closer. The boat rocks but neither of them pay it any mind. Stiles has a hand in Derek’s hair, a hand splayed on the side of his neck, thumb tucked beneath Derek’s jaw, turning Derek’s face up to meet his. His tongue dips to taste Derek’s mouth.

Finally, he thinks, gasping in a breath and going in for another kiss, _finally_. Derek feels so good — his mouth trailing down Stiles’s neck, his hand pressed against the small of Stiles’s back, drawing him closer, his bruising fingers firm on Stiles’s shoulder. Stiles lets himself be pulled forward, Derek’s thighs between his, squirming into Derek’s lap.

“We should,” Derek gasps against his mouth. “We shouldn’t—” he pulls back, breathing hard, settling his hands on Stiles’s hips to slow them, fingers flexing gently.

“Right,” Stiles sighs, low and long. “You’re right. We should stop.” He knows there are good reasons to, though at this moment, he can’t recall a single one. He reluctantly untangles his fingers from Derek’s hair and slides back onto his bench. “You should know that I don’t want to, though,” he says roughly.

“I don’t want to, either.” Derek leans back, eyes fixed on Stiles’s mouth. His own lips are wet and softly pink. “But better patience than regret.”

“Oh hell,” Stiles groans, covering his face with both hands. “You can’t look at me like that and expect me not to...”

“Not to what?”

“Want to touch you,” Stiles says, tucking his fingers under his thighs. 

Derek laughs, but it’s a choked, breathless sound that ends in a long, shaky sigh. “I meant to bring you here to give you something,” he says, reaching beneath his seat, pulling forth a parcel wrapped in linen, offering it up with both hands.

“Oh,” Stiles is still reeling. “Or, thank you. For me?”

“For you.”

Stiles takes and unfolds the package. A pair of leather bracers tumbles into his lap. They’re soft and supple, stamped in tiny, overlapping circular patterns that Stiles instantly recognizes as his own, drawn in light, from the midsummer festival. Triskelions frame the eyelets, laced with leather ties.

“They’re amazing.” Stiles runs a finger over the lacing, the beveled edges. “Did you make these, too?”

Derek nods. “After I saw you making arrows in the field.”

“Derek, I — they’re perfect. Thank you.”

“I’m glad you like them.” Derek smiles again — the small, private smile that he has when they’re alone like this, hopeful and sweet — and reaches for the oars.

++

Stiles gets his food in a fog. His thoughts are nowhere near dinner in the longhouse. They’re back in the boat; they’re wherever Derek is now, called away by his mother; they’re somewhere they can be alone, together, uninterrupted. He sits down, still dazed and daydreaming. He’s kissed many, taken lovers before — in the heady revelry of a festival, or to chase away the brutal cold of midwinter — but he hasn’t felt quite like this. As broken open, as bruised, as hungry.

Stiles isn’t alone for long, though he barely notices he has company until Erica’s already sitting down across from him with her bowl and a sly smile, Boyd at her right. “So, Stiles. Enjoying your time alone with Derek?”

He ignores the flush he can feel rising in his cheeks. There’s no way she could know exactly what he’s thinking about, but she’s laughing at him anyway, and to be fair — it can’t be that difficult to guess. He knows he must be obvious, but he can’t bring himself to care enough to stop.

Cora slides into the seat beside him before he has to answer, bearing her meal, four cups, and a jug of ale. “To share,” she says magnanimously, and raises an eyebrow at Erica.

“I’ll share just fine,” Erica says. “I was only asking Stiles how his courtship is going.”

“Erica,” Cora warns.

“Cora,” Erica spits back. “I’m just trying to make sure we don’t find ourselves in another situation like the one with the Argents.”

“The Argents?” Stiles cuts in, irritated to be interrupted and summarily ignored.

Cora takes a moment to level a glare at Erica before she answers. “The Argents are our neighbors to the East. They’re not exactly fond of the Hale Pack.”

“And why would that be?”

“The pack… We have a different way of life. Something the Argents don’t understand. We’ve been at odds for generations. It was supposed to be over and done with but...” Cora sighs. “It’s a long story, and probably not ours to tell.”

“I have time,” Stiles counters. “And who should I ask to tell me, if not you? Derek? Alpha Hale?”

Cora winces and looks to Boyd. He nods, takes a long pull from his cup and turns to Stiles.

“The Argents and the Hales have been enemies at least as far back as anyone can remember, and likely, farther. After generations of fighting, Talia and her father managed to broker a fragile peace between us. Several years ago, it looked like the Hales and Argents might finally put their rancor to rest. Talia and the Argent leaders began negotiating a marriage contract for Kate, the patriarch’s daughter. They’d intended...” the three betas exchange glances, and Boyd nods and continues. “Derek was to marry into the Argent family.”

Stiles blinks, caught off guard. “Derek?”

“Yes,” Cora jumps in. “My brother, Derek. He was meant to marry Kate Argent. But the Argents started with unreasonable demands right from the beginning — large portions of the harvest every year, a quarter of the lambs every spring, gold every time our ships returned. My mother made several generous offers in return, but…” She shrugs, sighing. “They never really intended to negotiate at all.”

“While all of this was going on,” Erica adds, “Derek was courting Kate — or trying to. He would visit their village to take her on walks in the woods, bring her presents—”

“I understand,” Stiles cut her off. It wasn’t unreasonable for Derek to have ever courted anyone else, but isn’t exactly in the mood to comb through the sordid details.

“Right,” Cora nods. “What Erica’s trying to say is that he was trying to make it work. He took it seriously. And on the last day they met for negotiations, the last attempt they made before it became clear the Argents brought nothing but bad faith to the table, we were all there. My mother laid out her final offer and the Argents countered with more ridiculous demands, petty, meaningless….” She trails off, and her gaze slips to somewhere beyond Stiles’s shoulder, eyes losing focus. 

“They required that Derek take their name. That he transfer all claim to his own property, inheritance, to the Argents. That his children bear the name Argent, and be raised as Argents, and grow up never knowing us to be their family. That, and more — more gold, more livestock, more land. And when they were done, my mother told them they were being unreasonable, that they couldn’t possibly be serious. That she’d never seen a betrothal like this and she wouldn’t entertain them any longer if they weren’t going to do this properly.

“And Kate, who sat silent, smirking the whole time, finally spoke. And you know what she said?” Cora turns and meets Stiles’s eyes. “It’s the very least they could give, since she would have to spend the rest of her life with a monster like him.”

Stiles starts, leaning forward as his fists clench in his lap. “She what?”

“Derek looked like she’d shoved a knife in his belly and twisted. My mother ended the negotiations then and there and chased the Argents out of the village.”

“It gets worse. That’s not all they did,” Boyd says. “Later that night, some of them came back and tried to burn the longhouse and the family quarters to the ground. We lost livestock and half the building. Peter was burned when he ran in to free the horses, but one of the children was awake and was able to get everyone out. No one else was hurt, but it wasn’t for the Argents’ lack of trying. We couldn’t ever prove it, but we know it was them.”

“The failed marriage negotiations were an excuse,” Erica bites out. “They hate us, and want to see every last one of our kind gone from this earth.”

Boyd and Cora exchange glances, and Cora takes a deep breath before she continues. “Since then… Well. It’s been a few years and they haven’t done anything extreme. Sometimes our patrols will catch them too close to the village and have to chase them back where they belong. As long as they stay out of our territory, we leave them alone.”

“Aren’t you worried they’ll do something while all of you are here?”

Cora laughs. “We’re not the only warriors in the Hale pack. There are many others that stayed in the North while we ventured here. My uncle and my eldest sister among them. We’re a pack. We are only weak if we are alone.”

The way they fall silent after, Boyd and Erica leaning into each other, Erica’s hand resting on the table so it barely touches Cora’s elbow, makes him think that there’s something more to it than he understands.

++

He excuses himself from the table after they’ve finished eating and escapes the stifling heat of the longhouse to walk home alone through the village. The moon is waxing, hanging low over the forest, and Stiles sighs a cloud of fog into the chilly night air. It hadn’t taken long for the cold to creep in that evening. He tugs his cloak tighter around his shoulders, and thinks about Derek.

He can’t think of much else, lately. It’s exhilarating and disconcerting, both. 

That evening, they parted by the longhouse, headed in separate directions, but not before Derek caught Stiles’s hand as he turned to leave, wove their fingers together, pressed his lips to Stiles’s knuckles with closed eyes. They stood there for a long moment before parting, entangled.

“Thank you,” Stiles said. “For the gift, and your company.”

“It was a pleasure,” Derek murmured, the tips of his ears flushed pink. “I’m sorry I have to go, when I’d much rather stay here with you.”

Stiles watched him go, watched him head down the path out of the village, turn one last time to steal a glance at Stiles, only to find him watching. Derek smiled for a brief moment, broad and unfettered, before he turned and took off around the corner.

_A monster_, Stiles thinks, and a white-hot curl of hatred for Kate Argent coils in his chest.

++

The next day, after helping Scott and Isaac mend the stable roof for the better part of a long afternoon, Stiles takes the long way home. The path loops out by the forest and overlooks the field. Someone else is out there with the sheep, he can see when he holds his hand up to shield his eyes from the sun. This far away, he can’t see exactly who it is, but it doesn’t matter too much: it’s not him, not anymore.

Later, eating dinner at home with his dad, he half-listens to a long, rambling story about today’s development in the dispute over the Whittemore’s fence line, a topic of sharp division for nearly three generations. He hardly notices when the story comes to an end, and his dad falls quiet, contemplative.

“Stiles,” his dad clears his throat, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the table.

“Hmm?”

“We’re getting close to settling on a price and dowry.” John stirs the stew in his bowl, blowing on the surface.

“I know,” Stiles says quietly.

“They’re making a generous offer. Fair. They’re honest negotiators, the Hales. They seem like good people.”

“Yes,” Stiles agrees. “They do.”

They sit in silence for a long moment. Stiles isn’t sure what to say. He knows all that’s left is for his father to agree to Talia’s terms, to accept the offer and celebrate the impending match, to set a date for the wedding. It’s not his decision, except that it is — he knows his dad would never agree to an arrangement that Stiles found objectionable.

John clears his throat. “Son, I loved your mother second only to you. She was beautiful and funny and too smart for her own good. She was my partner, my friend, my helpmeet.” He looks up at Stiles. “What I want, more than anything, is a chance for you to have that.

“If you don’t think you can have that with Hale… It’s not too late. If this isn’t what you want, just say the word. I’ll end this now. It might cause a feud, but I don’t care. I’ll take whatever trouble the Hales want to send our way. If this isn’t what you want, you can end this here and walk away. I’ll do it. I just want you to be happy.”

Stiles thinks about it for a long, silent moment: the first snowflakes of his fifth winter, landed in his mother’s hair. The Hale pack lined up across from them at the bargaining table, firelit and imposing. Derek: The Wolf, the first time Stiles had seen him from far across the field, tall and proud, and later, standing beside him, wind whipping his hair into a wild tangle and the sun lighting his eyes the color of sage, or the ocean before the sun burns the fog away. The feeling of his hand in Derek’s hair, Derek’s arm firm and strong wrapped around his back, the kiss that sent his heart racing and blood rushing. The way he’d smiled at Stiles in the low light of the evening fire, burned down to embers, wide and honest, hopeful, something for only Stiles to see.

“Do you think you can have that?” His dad asks, finally. “Do you think you might come to love him, someday?”

“Yes,” Stiles says without hesitation, voice hoarse. “Yes. I think I might.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Miracles happen every day.

His dad leaves a copy of the treaty agreement on the table when he leaves the next morning. Stiles doesn’t much care whether it’s forgetfulness or plausible deniability that lands the document in his hands. He’ll take it either way.

First, he skims through it, then settles in to read. The agreement offers few surprises -- barley and oats from the North; wheat and sugar beets from the South. A favorable fishing agreement when the waterways in the North are clear of ice, and access to those in the South for trade and defense when they’re not. The Hales offer weapons and metalwork, and the Beaconers bring wool and flax and the finest weavers in the South -- though Derek could easily be among them, Stiles knows now.

Common allies, common enemies, and a commitment to mutual aid and mutual defense -- Stiles notes and skips over the standard clauses, and lands on the nuptial agreement. There, his full name: _Mieczyslaw Johanneson Stilinski to wed Derek Samuelson Hale, whereafter they shall reside and make their home in Beacon._

He skims over the bride-price and dowry next, then stops. And reads them again.

“What?” he asks, letting the hand holding the agreement fall to rest on the worn table. There’s no one in the cottage to answer him, but he sits there, blinking, as if some cosmic response is forthcoming. There’s no way the amount can be correct. He knew Derek held some sort of… fondness, maybe, or perhaps affection, for him. In his most daring fantasies, he thinks of the attraction as ardour, even. But not remotely enough to justify… this.

Maybe the Sheriff is a much cannier negotiator than he’d realized. Maybe he’d been listening, all those years Stiles had tried to suggest advantageous counteroffers or coax his dad to take a stronger stance. 

Or perhaps there is some facet of the agreement that has compelled the Hales to sweeten their offer. Stiles glances through the agreement again. There’s still nothing remarkable about it, save for the startling generosity of the offer for his hand and the fact that he and Derek shall remain in Beacon after they are wed. Perhaps it is something unwritten, then. Stiles flushes, wide-eyed, as he imagines what sorts of expectations might justify the cost. He can’t decide whether he’s intrigued or horrified at the prospects that come to mind, at what unusual proclivities his husband-to-be could harbor that would require recompense to such a degree. 

He almost leaves right then to track his father down -- under the pretense of having forgotten his copy, of course -- and demand an explanation. Only the prospect of potential embarrassment in front of the Hale contingent, and his dad’s promise to return to the cottage for lunch, stop him.

Nevertheless, he’s anxious all morning, and glad that he told Derek he had plans for lunch. They haven’t been alone together much since their excursion out onto the water. Both of them are a little shy around each other. They haven’t… advanced their intimacy. But the touches they do share now, however small, linger a moment too long, send Stiles’s heart racing, flush Derek’s cheeks pink. He’s grateful for the reprieve - between the befuddling temptation of Derek’s presence and his cautious confusion over the treaty, he can’t imagine keeping a level head long enough to avoid major embarrassment.

The morning crawls by. He busies himself with minor chores -- fixes the leather pull on the front door, harvests the last scant crop of fall vegetables from the garden, inspects the sod roof for repairs it might need to last through the winter -- until he finally hears his father’s footsteps on the path outside. He springs to his feet to greet him at the door.

“Dad,” he says pleasantly. “So good to see you. Why don’t you come in? Get comfortable. I missed you this morning.”

“Good to see you, too, son,” his dad says, looking at him askance, one eyebrow raised. He takes a seat at the table, and Stiles slides a bowl of soup and a crusty hunk of bread down in front of him. “Not sure what I did to deserve the warm welcome, though.”

“Can’t a guy just be happy to see his dad?” Stiles says. He busies himself with preparing a bowl of his own and getting settled on the low bench across from his dad.

“Usually?” John asks, letting Stiles shift uncomfortably beneath his gaze. “No.”

“Oh, come on. Why’re you always so suspicious?”

“Past experience. On a related topic, I see you got a chance to look through the agreement,” his dad says with pointed ease. “What did you think?”

“Well, it’s pretty standard,” Stiles hedges. “Though I guess you were listening when I gave you all those pointers about negotiating to win. How did you get them to agree to that price?”

His dad shrugs, face carefully blank. “I didn’t.”

“What do you mean you didn’t? Was it Finstock? There’s no way Whittemore cares enough to lift a finger over me.”

“We didn’t negotiate the bride price,” his dad says carefully, eyebrows raised. He purses his lips and taps on the table. “The Hales made an offer, and we accepted.”

“What?”

“Talia Hale made an offer for your hand and, with your permission, I accepted. That’s all that happened.”

“‘That’s all that happened?’ But, what -- I mean, how -- this is too much,” Stiles blurts out, cheeks flaming.

“Too much for my eldest, only son’s hand?” 

“Dad, come on. I mean -- it’s too much. I’m not a prince, or a decorated warrior, like Derek is. I don’t exactly have a hoard of suitors knocking down the door, vying for my attention. This is the first time,” Stiles trails off. The only time. Hopefully, the last time, he thinks, and swallows the lump in his throat.

“It’s got to be a mistake,” Stiles says again. “There’s no way--”

“I’m going to stop you right there, kid.” His dad leans forward, and looks straight in his eyes. “There absolutely is a way, and here’s how it happened. Alpha Talia Hale wrote an offer on a piece of parchment. She slid it across the table and said she hoped I would find it adequate. I read the offer. I found it adequate. And I accepted. No mistake,” his dad leans back in his chair, but doesn’t look away from Stiles.

“I…” Stiles trails off, dumbfounded.

“I wouldn’t let you go for anything less,” his dad says. “And I don’t know what he’s said to you -- and what’s more, I don’t want to know -- but that Hale kid must be smarter than he looks, because it seems like he has some idea of what you’re worth.”

Sitles, for perhaps the first time in his life, finds himself at a loss for words.

++

Stiles can’t fall asleep that night, huddled on his pallet in front of the banked fire. His dad snores across the room, under a pile of furs and woolen blankets -- abbreviated autumnal days have ushered in a nighttime chill too insistent for summer’s bedclothes. The room around him is hardly more than shadows. He pulls his own bedding tighter around his shoulders to ward off the cold.

In the quiet, he begins to wonder again at the nuptial contract, his imagination far more insistent in the midnight dark. Why would Alpha Hale offer so high a price for… for _him_? It doesn’t make any sense… though, no less than Derek’s specific interest in Stiles for his husband. Did they think he would not want to be wed? For his reputation as a warrior, a weapon, Derek has given no indication that he would be a cruel husband. Are the Hales afraid that Stiles should break the betrothal -- or worse, renege on the marriage after he and Derek are wed?

He thinks again of the Argents and their daughter’s cruelty. Of Derek’s gentle hands, the taste of his mouth soft under Stiles’s own, the low gust of his laughter. There’s much he has yet to learn of Derek, of his rhythms and moods, of his thoughts, of -- his heart stumbles over the thought -- his body. Even still, he can’t imagine anything so extreme as to warrant severing a vow between them.

Stiles hums to himself, an old tune his mother used to sing in her low, throaty voice, and the embers in the hearth flare a little brighter, a glow of warmth spreading over Stiles’s face. He settles in, mind quieted enough to attempt sleep. His questions will keep until morning, when he can ask the only person who will be able to answer.

++

Stiles waits outside after morning chores to catch Talia on her way to the longhouse, on her way to the morning’s final negotiations. As the agreement comes closer to fruition, the Beaconers have begun preparing for a feast -- a celebration of the agreement and a farewell to the Hales, until they return for the nuptials a fortnight hence.

“Alpha Hale,” he calls, hurrying out the gate to meet her on the path.

“Stiles,” she says, nodding in greeting, trying and failing to hide a smile as he trips on his way out to her, barely catching himself before he goes face first into the dirt. “I hope the morning finds you well.”

“And you,” Stiles says, catching his breath. “Are you in any great hurry at the moment?”

“Not if you require my attention. Is there something I can help with, Stiles?”

“Can I ask you something?” Stiles says, but they both know it’s not a question. Talia coolly raises her eyebrows, and he hesitates.

Far from midnight and the cocooned warmth of his bed, doubt returns. Why make such a generous offer, one that could not be refused without insult? Is he to be a sacrificial lamb, purchased to placate their fiercest warrior’s darkest proclivities? Or worse: do the rest of the Hales know of his parlor tricks? Do they suspect he is capable of more? And what do they intend to do with that knowledge? Stiles could hardly guess, were it so. He himself has never tested the true limits of his abilities.

“The bride price,” Stiles blurts out, and stops. “I know my reputation as an exemplary shepherd and accomplished fletcher precedes me. But why so generous?”

Talia’s smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “I should think you already know the answer to that question. Or perhaps I have underestimated you.”

“If I knew, I wouldn’t be asking.” Stiles’s heart skips a beat in his chest. His response verges on impudence, saved only by sincerity. And while he is not sworn to Talia, they both know: his position is precarious, and she is not to be trifled with.

“It would seem my son has a particular fondness for you.” Talia is staring directly into his eyes. The hair on the back of his neck rises, but he refuses to be cowed. “And I had thought you were beginning to soften toward him. Have I been mistaken?”

“You are not,” Stiles says. “But your son has taken care to treat me with kindness. He has a clever wit, when he so chooses, and he is known by many for his handsome aspect. But why has he chosen me?”

“Interesting. He has said the same of you.”

Stiles flushes, but continues on. “But not only of me?”

“Ah.” Talia finally looks away, a frown flitting across her brow as she glances back in the direction of the dunes. “Derek wasn’t in love with her, if that’s what you’re asking. But he… My son is a romantic. Since he was a child of three, he’s waited for the day he could share his life with someone. To share himself with someone. And when the Argents approached us, he was eager to move forward.”

“And you supported the match?”

“I had my doubts. But he seemed so certain. And I…” Talia sighs. “I wanted to grant him happiness.”

“But…” Stiles trails off, uncertain how to continue.

“But the Argents were not what they seemed. I should have said something when I first suspected, so that he would have been clear-sighted. It’s Derek’s nature to be led by his heart,” Talia shook her head. “Despite my misgivings, I let him follow.”

Stiles stands tall, fighting the urge to fidget, to scrub at the back of his neck and chew his lip. His mouth feels too dry, and he tries to swallow. “And now? Have you any misgivings?”

Talia looks at him askance, her mouth drawn into a wry half-smile. “Stiles, do you know why we came to this village?

“No,” he says, kicking his toe into the ground. “I asked Derek, and he told me some of it, but I’m still not sure.”

“Stiles.” Something in her tone makes him jerk his gaze back to hers. “You should know he asked for you,” Talia says, leaning toward him, quiet and intense: sharing a confidence, a truth. Handing him hope to palm and slip into his pocket for safekeeping. “I told him it was time for him to take a partner, and he asked to come here. He didn’t come here to get away from the Argents. He came here for_ you_.”

“But I…” Stiles falls silent. But what? Derek hadn’t told him in so many words. But why else would the Hales bother trekking so far South for their warrior Wolf to court a shepherd of no consequence, nothing to his name but a small home, 

At his failure to reply, Talia smiles. She brings a hand to cup his cheek, soft, and cool from the foggy morning air. “But you have made him hopeful again. And should you choose to, I believe you could make him happy. You’ve a kind heart.”

Stiles knows better -- he can be cruel and craven, short-tempered, suspicious. He nods anyway. To Derek, he thinks, he can be kind with little effort. He wants to be kind to Derek, who has borne the brunt of brutality, who has survived.

“I will be late,” Talia says, smoothing her thumb along Stiles’s cheekbone as she draws away. A mother’s gesture, easy to her as breathing, but it catches Stiles’s breath in his throat. “Your troth awaits.”

++

The feast begins the next day: the agreement is finished that morning, hands shaken across the table and seals stamped beneath the terms. Stiles spends the morning hunting in the woods with Scott and Isaac, and the evening fireside, eating roasted venison and sweet pies stuffed with honeyed apples. The ale is rich and flows freely, and it’s not long before flutes and lyres and panpipes find their way into skillful hands and the tables are pushed back against the walls.

Stiles is seated beside Derek at the high table, the heat of the fire at their backs. He’s drunk his share of ale and wine, and he can feel the glow of it in his cheeks, a pleasant weight in his limbs. He allows his elbow to brush against Derek’s, lets their knees recklessly knock under the table and linger there. Derek has long since unpinned his cloak, and his shoulders are broad beneath the fine cloth of his tunic.

Derek watches the dancers, and Stiles watches him -- the firelight washing him golden and warm, darkening the shadows along his jaw, casting his hair in jet black. Stiles remembers how soft it was, tangled with his fingers, how it felt to cup Derek’s cheek, his beard brushing against Stiles’s palm. He wants to do it again, he thinks recklessly, hopelessly; he wants to do it right now, to climb back into Derek’s lap--

“Come,” Stiles stands abruptly, offering Derek his hand. Derek turns toward him, frowning. “Dance with me.”

No one’s paying attention to them now, swept up in the music, and they miss the knowing, hungry look Derek gives him, the slow smile blooming on his lips. Stiles can’t look away.

“I must do as my intended desires,” Derek says, accepting Stiles’s outstretched hand and rising from the table. Stiles is grateful for the fire, the suddenly stifling heat of the longhouse, an excuse for the flush rising in his cheeks.

_This is the man I will marry_, Stiles reminds himself and, emboldened by the thought, he pulls Derek to him, the same sharp tug of a taut fishing line, an ensnared hare. 

Startled, Derek allows himself to be reeled. He ends up closer than Stiles intended, but not nearly close enough, one foot between Stiles’s own, mere inches between their bodies. Stiles can feel Derek’s surprised exhale against his cheek, and his own breath catches in chest, but he doesn’t stop. He holds Derek’s gaze, heart pounding, as he brings Derek’s hand up and turns it in his own to press a soft, lingering kiss on the inside of his wrist, the delicate skin and fine blue veins like a root’s furthest reaches, the rhythm of Derek’s heartbeat held to his lips.

“Indeed,” Stiles says. “You must.” And then, Derek’s the one blushing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who's still reading this!!! I love each and every one of you.
> 
> Come hang with me on twitter @whteverwhtever. It's mostly It Ch. 2 now though, I can't lie to you.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I don't have an update schedule but there is definitely more forthcoming. Title is from Hozier's "Shrike".
> 
> You can also find me on [tumblr](https://whateverrrrwhatever.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/whateverrrrisay).


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